Entry 113-5

George Cochran On How To Overcome A Bummer Tournament

The Key to Successful Bass Fishing

Editor's Note: Often, a rainbow follows a severe storm. Some people will see the rainbow and appreciate it, but then immediately think about how bad the storm has been. Others never may see the rainbow; they only see the storm and think about how bad it is. The old saying is true: "It's an ill wind that blows no good." The secret to a happy life is seeing and understanding the promise of the rainbow regardless of how bad the storm is, whether you have a bad event in a fishing tournament or in your life. George Cochran, two-time Bassmaster Classic Champion, of Hot Springs, Arkansas, has the ability to look beyond a bad tournament.

We asked George Cochran how he'd sustained a professional bass-fishing career for 25 years. Cochran left a secure job working on the railroad to enter the sport of bass fishing, which was about as insecure as trying to be a professional gambler. But Cochran won two Bassmasters Classics and has a list of devoted sponsors who have supported him, his family and his fishing throughout his long and illustrious career. So, how do you do it, George? How do you make a living in pro fishing for this long a period of time?

Cochran: The secret to sustaining a long, successful bass-fishing career is that same secret that is required to sustain a long and successful career as any other type of athlete, businessman or successful person, regardless of the field in which he works. The answer is quite simple; I work really hard. I work hard for my sponsors. I do all I can to be where they want me to be, do what they ask me to do, promote their products, use their products and help them to produce new products. I also work hard to teach other fishermen how to use the products I use, so they can be as successful as I've been. I've learned that when I teach others, I re-teach myself some of the same lessons I continue to need to learn.

Too, I approach my fishing as a job. There's no excuse for not going to work. The weather may be bad, the water may be rough, I may be fishing terribly, the bass may not be biting, I may be sick, or I may have problems that I can use as an excuse not to go to work, but I don't. I go to work every day and try to work as hard as I can to learn more about bass fishing, to improve my skills as a bass fisherman, to try out new techniques, to learn to fish new lures and to learn to create new lures that will help me and other bass fishermen to catch more bass. If you look at the members of the Strike King Pro Fishing Staff, you'll see we have some of the most-successful bass fishermen in America today on that team. They are successful because they go to work each day.

One of the reasons that Strike King is so successful is that the company expects each of their professional bass fishermen to make recommendations every year for new lures, new colors and new additions to existing lures. The people at Strike King work hard every year to try to bring the fishing public the newest and best lures on the market. They expect each of us to work hard to help them develop, test and evaluate the new products. To put it in a nutshell, the secret to my having had a long and successful bass fishing career, is much like the secret of why Strike King has had a long and successful career as a lure manufacturer. We both work really hard.

Now, how this relates to you, is if you want to be a successful tournament bass fisherman, then you need to work harder at catching fish, promoting sponsors and being the very best you can as a fisherman, a promoter and a person. Learn to fish when you don't want to fish, when the bass aren't biting, when nobody in his right mind will be fishing and when you have to fish the kind of water you have never fished before. If you do all these things, you'll become a better fisherman, and if you want to be a tournament angler you'll become a better pro. The real key to being a great bass fisherman is to work harder than the people who are not great bass fishermen.




 

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